Tag: engineering

Billionaire Maezawa chooses his passengers for Starship lunar flight

9:07 am

Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa yesterday announced the eight passengers he will take with him on his private Starship flight around the Moon, its launch date still not set.

The full list of ten (including the two back-up passengers) is a wide mixture of individuals with a wide range of disciplines coming from a wide range of countries. For those interested in space, the one name that stood out and was very familiar was Tim Dodd, created of Everyday Astronaut. He created a video describing his selection as well as Maezawa’s entire project, which I have embedded below:
» Read more

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Last 747 rolls off assembly line

8:58 am

Boeing earlier this week completed assembly of its very last 747 airplane, the 1,574th such plane built in the past half century.

Still in its iridescent green protective coating, the giant aircraft was towed out of the widebody aircraft factory in a low-key exercise without any fanfare. Once the 747 has been cleared, it will be flown to another Boeing facility where it will be painted in the Atlas Air livery in anticipation of final delivery to the customer next year.

The 747 was born out of a failed bid by Boeing to market a large jet transporter to the US military in the 1960s. That contract for what became the C-5A Galaxy eventually went to Lockheed, but Boeing was convinced that its basic design, with its high-bypass turbofan engine, could be reworked for the civilian market, which was booming at the time.

On January 9, 1969, the first 747 prototype took to the skies over Washington state. It was a staggering 225 feet (68.5 m) long, had a wing area larger than a basketball court, and the tail was as high as a six-story building.

Without question the 747 was one of the safest and well designed airplanes ever built. It was years after that first flight before one was involved in an accident, and that was not due to a failure of the plane itself. It also flew like a dream, its large size making it look like it was lumbering slowly in the air. Its retirement is almost entirely related to fuel cost-savings, since the 747 has four engines and thus more fuel than more modern planes.

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China completes two launches successfully

8:48 am

China today successfully completed two launches:

First, China’s government used its Long March 2D rocket to launch a classified Earth observation satellite into orbit. The rocket launched from an interior spaceport, dropping its expendable first stages within China.

Next, the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology (CALT) successfully completed the inaugural launch of its Smart Dragon-3 solid-fueled rocket, putting 14 smallsats into orbit. The rocket launched from a platform at sea, so its expendable stages fell in the ocean. Though the rocket is aimed at launching commercial payloads, it is still a Chinese government project using military missile technology.

The leaders in the 2022 launch race:

57 China
55 SpaceX
21 Russia
9 Rocket Lab
8 ULA

The U.S. still leads China 79 to 57 in the national rankings, but trails the entire world combined 87 to 79.

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Webb’s infrared view of the Southern Ring Nebula

4:57 pm

Two views of Southern Ring Nebula by Webb
Click for original image.

The two images to the left were produced by the Webb Space Telescope, showing in false colors the Southern Ring Nebula as seen by two of Webb’s infrared cameras.

The two images shown here each combine near-infrared and mid-infrared data to isolate different components of the nebula. The image at [top] highlights the very hot gas that surrounds the central stars. The image at [bottom] traces the star’s scattered molecular outflows that have reached farther into the cosmos.

Based on the data, astronomers posit that up the system could have as many as five stars orbiting each other, with three as yet unseen, or the inner ones might no longer exist, having been absorbed by the bigger stars.

It’s possible more than one star interacted with the dimmer of the two central stars, which appears red in this image, before it created this jaw-dropping planetary nebula. The first star that “danced” with the party’s host created a light show, sending out jets of material in opposite directions. Before retiring, it gave the dim star a cloak of dust. Now much smaller, the same dancer might have merged with the dying star – or is now hidden in its glare.

A third partygoer may have gotten close to the central star multiple times. That star stirred up the jets ejected by the first companion, which helped create the wavy shapes we see today at the edges of the gas and dust. Not to be left out, a fourth star with an orbit projected to be much wider, also contributed to the celebration. It circled the scene, further stirring up the gas and dust, and generating the enormous system of rings seen outside the nebula. The fifth star is the best known – it’s the bright white-blue star visible in the images that continues to orbit predictably and calmly.

Much of this remains mere theory, based on the available data. Nonetheless, the data from many such planetary nebula continues to suggest their strange and wonderful shapes are created by multiple stars, acting as a mix-master to churn up the nebula’s dust.

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SpaceX successfully launches 40 OneWeb satellites

3:39 pm

SpaceX today used its Falcon 9 rocket to successfully launch 40 OneWeb satellites, joining with India to replace the launch services of Russia.

This was the first SpaceX launch for OneWeb. The first stage completed its fourth flight, landing back at SpaceX’s launchpad at Cape Canaveral. The fairings completed their fifth and sixth flights.

The leaders in the 2022 launch race:

55 China
55 SpaceX
21 Russia
9 Rocket Lab
8 ULA

The U.S. nowl leads China 79 to 55 in the national rankings, though it still trails the entire world combined 86 to 79.

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What a Martian impact looks like on a sheet of slushy ice

11:00 am

Overview map

What a Martian impact looks like on a sheet of ice
Click for full image.

My headline is a bit of a guess, but it is an educated guess for today’s cool image. The photo to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on October 30, 2022 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).

The location, as indicated by the white dot in the overview map above, puts this impact in a relatively flat area of Deuteronilus Mensae, the westernmost chaos region of the 2,000 mile long mid-latitude strip I call glacier country.

In other words, there is likely a lot of near surface ice here, as this impact makes very plain. If you imagine dropping a pebble into a thick layer of soft ice cream, you might get a crater reminiscent of this. I use for comparison ice cream on Earth because the lighter Martian gravity probably makes Martian ice softer and more slushy.

As I have said many times before, Mars is strange, Mars is mysterious, and above all Mars is alien.

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China’s possible plans for expanding Tiangong-3

9:20 am

Though the plans have apparently not been approved, the designers of China’s Tiangong-3 space station are now considering expanding the station with additional large modules.

“Following our current design, we can continue to launch an extension module to dock with the forward section of the space station, and the extension module can carry a new hub for docking with the subsequent space vehicles,” [Wang Xiang, commander of the space station system at the China Academy of Space Technology (CAST)] told CCTV following the return to Earth of the Shenzhou-14 crew Dec. 4.

With a new docking hub, the Chinese would actually have the potential of doubling the station’s size by duplicating its present configuration with one central module (with the hub) and two side modules.

The station’s design, an upgrade of the Soviet Union’s Mir station, also allows for relatively easy replacement of modules as they age. Though the station only has a planned ten-year life, do not be surprised if it remains operational for many decades beyond that.

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Sweden upgrading suborbital launchsite for orbital business

8:52 am

A Swedish launchsite that the European Space Agency (ESA) has used on and off for decades for suborbital test launches is now being upgraded to make it attractive to smallsat rocket companies.

Founded by the European Space Agency (ESA) in 1966 to study the atmosphere and Northern Lights phenomenon, the Esrange space center has invested heavily in its facilities in recent years to be able to send satellites into space.

At a huge new hangar big enough to house two 30-meter rockets currently under assembly elsewhere, Philip Pahlsson, head of the “New Esrange” project, pulls up a heavy blue door. Under the rosy twilight of this early afternoon, construction machines nearby can be seen busily completing work on three new launch pads. “Satellite launches will start to take place from here next year,” Pahlsson says.

In Europe, Esrange is competing with a new Norway spaceport for the first orbital rocket launch. It is also competing with two spaceports in Scotland. And the one that makes launches easy for the new smallsat rocket companies is going to garner the most business.

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A Martian ship’s prow

2:50 pm

A Martian ship's prow
Click for full image.

Cool image time! The photo to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on August 31, 2022 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows what the scientists call “layering” surrounding this pointed mesa, which I roughly estimate to be somewhere between 200 to 400 feet high.

As you approach the mesa you first walk on the dust-covered flat plains. Then you start up a slope of what looks like alluvial fill, material that over time has fallen from the mesa to pile up as an apron at its base. You then reach a series of terraces, each likely marking a different layering major event from sometime in the distance past. Over time, for unknown reasons, the material surrounding this material has eroded away, while the mesa and its layers somehow survived.

The overview map below helps tell us what those past layering events were, as well as the source of the large amount of dust and sand at this location.
» Read more

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Blue Origin-led team bids for NASA manned lunar lander contract

11:09 am

Capitalism in space: Though few details have been released, Blue Origin has teamed up with Boeing and Lockheed Martin to bid for a NASA contract to build a second manned lunar lander, after SpaceX’s Starship.

Blue Origin revealed its team’s submission to that second NASA program in a brief statement posted on its website on Tuesday, saying “in partnership with NASA, this team will achieve sustained presence on the Moon.”

The deadline for proposals was Tuesday. NASA is expected to make an award decision in June 2023.

Blue Origin’s team also includes spacecraft software firm Draper, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania-based Astrobotic and Honeybee Robotics, a manufacturer of military and civil robotic systems that was acquired by Blue Origin in January.

It will be interesting to see if this proposed lander is significantly different than the previous proposal, which NASA considered overpriced and not as capable as Starship.

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Virgin Orbit schedules launch from the UK, despite no permit

11:01 am

Virgin Orbit has now scheduled its first launch from a Cornwall airport for December 14, 2022, even though the company has not been issued its launch permit from the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) of the United Kingdom, even after almost six months of delays.

Spaceport Cornwall was awarded an operators licence by the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) last month, meaning the site is licensed for launch operations.

However, Virgin Orbit as the operator needs both launch and range licences from the CAA before the historic launch can happen. Spaceport Cornwall told MailOnline that December 14 is when the window opens for the first launch attempt – although this is ‘by no means a guaranteed flight date’.

According to a BBC report, that license has still not been issued. I suspect Virgin Orbit has set this date to pressure the CAA to finally get its act together and issue the permit.

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Ingenuity sets altitude record on 35th flight

10:33 am

Overview map
Click for interactive map.

On December 3, 2022 Ingenuity completed its 35th flight, traveling about 49 feet sideways but reaching a new altitude record for the Mars helicopter of 46 feet.

The map to the right shows the helicopter’s new position by the green dot, with Perseverance’s present position shown with the blue dot. The helicopter only moved slightly to the northwest of its previous position.

The plan had been to test the helicopter’s upgraded software at this new altitude while flying fly 50 feet sideways for 52 seconds at a speed of 6.7 feet per second. The flight met these goals almost exactly, going a distance only slightly shorter, well within its margin of error. The new altitude record however is significant, as going even slight distances higher in Mars’ very thin atmosphere (1/1000th of Earth’s) is challenging, to say the least. This higher flight means Ingenuity can fly up above higher terrain, such as the delta that is Perseverance’s next goal.

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InSight’s low power levels holding steady

10:11 am

InSight's power levels as of November 29, 2022

The science team for the Mars’ lander InSight today (December 6th) released a new update (dated November 29th) of the power levels being produced by its dust-covered solar panels.

As of Nov. 29, 2022, InSight is generating an average between 290 watt-hours of energy per Martian day, or sol. The tau, or level of dust cover in the atmosphere, was estimated at .95 (typical tau levels outside of dust season range from 0.6-0.7).

I have added this new data unto the graph to the right, though I am puzzled by the date given to the update. Why post this today, when this update covers data only two days after the previous update (November 27th), and is more than a week out of date? This is especially puzzling because the numbers did not change at all.

Nonetheless, the lander is still alive, but barely. One wonders however what happened in the past week, since today’s update does not bring us up to date.

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Martian dunes, as far as the eye can see

11:21 am

Martian dunes
Click for full image.

Cool image time! The photo to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on July 14, 2022 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows the dune filled floor of an unnamed 25-mile-wide ancient and very eroded Martian crater.

These endless dunes — which extend far beyond this photo to cover the entire floor of this crater as well as an overlapping crater to the north that is only slightly smaller — reveal something fundamental about this location: The winds prevail from one direction consistently, from either the north or the south. Closer inspection would likely resolve which way, but I don’t have the knowledge or access to the data to do so.

The overview map below, provides context, and also further information about why these dunes are here.
» Read more

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The Middle East in Space

9:21 am

A space conference taking place this week in the United Arab Emirates has produced a number of somewhat intriguing stories, some indicating the growing the new colonial movement in space, and some marking the significant changes produced by the Abraham Accords, peace treaties negotiated and signed during the Trump administration between Israel and a number of Arab nations.

For example, Israel’s president, Isaac Herzog, was invited to the conference to give a keynote speech, and he did so as part of a tour of several Arab countries, all of whom were Israel’s sworn enemies prior to the Abraham Accords.

In his address, Herzog touted Israel’s warming ties with Bahrain and the Emirates since the signing of the Abraham Accords in 2020, and predicted a leap forward in space exploration. “I am very happy to be here and take part in this timely debate, under the auspices of my dear friend, President Mohammed bin Zayed. I have just arrived from Bahrain with my wife, Michal, where we conducted the first State Visit of an Israeli president in the Kingdom of Bahrain, and I am extremely grateful to His Majesty the King of Bahrain, Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa.”

It appears that, even though the Biden administration has done little to promote further Abraham Accord agreements, many powerful Arab nations of the Middle East are embracing these deals regardless, and thus the tensions in that war-torn region have been largely reduced as a result. Israel still has enemies there, but it now appears to have, at a minimum, neutral partners willing to peacefully work with it.

The conference has also produced additional space news from other Middle East countries.
» Read more

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Ukrainian rocket startup targets ’23 for first launch

8:57 am

The new colonial movement: A Ukrainian rocket startup, Promin Aerospace, now expects to complete the first suborbital launch of a test rocket in 2023, despite the Russian invasion and its regular bombing the city of Dnipro, where the company is based.

On Feb. 22, two days before the Russian invasion, Rudominski sent the first batch of emails seeking seed investment. When the war started, Promin executives realized their investment plans would need to be put on hold while their focus shifted to the safety of employees, families and friends, plus support for Ukrainian defense and humanitarian relief efforts.

By early April, most employees were back working full time.

The company does not reveal its location out of fear of further Russian bombing.

As for its planned rocket launch, though it wishes to do the test from the Ukraine, it also has a deal with one of the new spaceports in Scotland and could launch from there if necessary.

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Orion completes burn to send spacecraft back to Earth

8:50 am

NASA’s Orion capsule yesterday successfully fired its engines as it zipped past the Moon to send it on a trajectory back to Earth, with splashdown in the Pacific off the coast of California scheduled for December 11, 2022.

Not all was hunky-dory, however. Prior to the burn a power unit shut down unexpectedly.

A power unit on board the Orion spacecraft turned off four devices “responsible for downstream power” that connect to the Artemis 1 vehicle’s propulsion and heating subsystems, NASA officials wrote in a statement. But mission personnel swiftly put a fix in place and the mission is carrying on, the statement emphasized. “Teams confirmed the system was healthy and successfully repowered the downstream components,” agency officials wrote in the statement, released late on Sunday. “There was no interruption of power to any critical systems, and there were no adverse effects to Orion’s navigation or communication.”

Engineers think the shut down was related to a test performed in connection with an earlier incident.

Regardless, all now appears well for that December 11nd splashdown.

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The steep interior rim of Aristarchus Crater

11:30 am

Aristarchus Crater
Click for larger image.

Cool image time! The photo to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, is a just released image taken by Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, looking across the top of Aristarchus Crater on the Moon from a height of only 60 miles, with the dark surrounding plateau in the foreground contrasting sharply with the bright crater interior. For scale, the distance from the floor of the crater to the top of the rim is about 9,000 feet. The bright central peak is about 1,300 feet tall. The contrast in brightness inside and outside the crater is explained thus:

Adjacent to Aristarchus crater is the Aristarchus plateau, one of the largest volcanic centers on the Moon. Here we find one of the largest rilles [on the Moon, dubbed Vallis Schröteri], a massive pyroclastic deposit, and the source of extensive flood basalts.

These volcanic materials are considered relatively young (for the Moon) – 1.5 to 2.5 billion years. The pyroclastic deposit formed when magma was explosively ejected from the vent and broke into small droplets quenched as glass in the cold vacuum of space as they fell back to the surface. Due to their high glass content, the pyroclastic deposits are distinctly low in albedo (relatively dark), providing a dark background for the bright Aristarchus crater. Within the crater, some of these pyroclastic deposits may be visible as the darkest areas on the far wall, and glassy impact melt is moderately lower in reflectance than the bright, rocky materials exposed on areas of the crater floor and walls.

The overview map below shows both the crater and the vent from which Vallis Schröteri belched.
» Read more

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Curiosity’s recent and future travels amid the Martian mountains

11:09 am

Curiosity's recent and future travels on Mars
Click for full panorama.

Overview map
Click for interactive map.

The panorama above, created from 31 images taken by Curiosity’s right navigation camera on December 5, 2022, provides us a wonderful overview of the rover’s recent and future travels amid the lower foothills of Mount Sharp in Gale Crater.

The overview map to the right provides context. The blue dot indicates Curiosity’s present position. The yellow lines indicate the approximate area viewed by the panorama. The red dotted line indicates Curiosity’s planned route, with the white dots the route it has actually traveled. On the panorama, the pink dotted line indicates where it has been, and the red dotted line where it is going.

For scale, Kukenan is estimated to be about 1,500 feet high. Though Chenapua in front seems comparable, it is actually much smaller, only about 200 to 300 feet high, at the most. Orinoco, though lower on the mountain, is probably about 300 to 400 feet high.

To really see the magnificence of this terrain, you must click on the panorama and explore the full image. Curiosity is truly traveling amid mountains, and is the first human robot to do so on another world.

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The uncertainties surrounding India’s proposed first manned mission

10:00 am

Link here. The article does a nice job of outlining the program, dubbed Gaganyaan, as well as the many issues that has caused the first launch to be delayed more than three years.

The key quote however is this:

Despite the government claiming that there would be no delays due to Covid, the first uncrewed flight was rescheduled from 2020 to 2021 and then again to 2022. The dates were once again revised to late 2023 or early 2024, announced Union minister of state for science and technology Jitendra Singh in September this year. [emphasis mine]

The highlighted claim is quite amusing, considering how India’s government space agency ISRO shut down entirely because of the Wuhan panic for more than two years, and remains somewhat dormant even now. As a result of that panic, ISRO lost almost its entire commercial market to American companies.

Read the entire article. It summarizes the state of Gaganyaan in good detail, which also implies that a first launch in ’24 remains questionable.

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Fieldsports Britain – Rat removal using dogs

6:01 pm

An evening pause: Best to play this with the captions on, considering the thick accents. As noted on the youtube webpage:

Andy Crow is clearing the barn of straw which has become home to lots and lots of rats – and he wants them off the farmyard. As a final effort to get rid of as many as possible Andy has enrolled the help of a couple of terriers, a lurcher and a lab/springer cross. As he moves the bales the dogs and sticks start flying.

Hat tip Diane Zimmerman.

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Martian glaciers below 30 degrees latitude

12:10 pm

A Martian glacier below 30 degrees north latitude
Click for full image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on September 28, 2022 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). While it shows what looks like a somewhat typical Martian glacial flow pushing through a gap between hills, this glacial flow is not typical. It sits at just under 30 degrees north latitude, closer to the equator than almost any glacial feature on Mars. Moreover, the younger impact crater on top suggests this glacier has been here for some time. Though the impact is younger than the crater, it is not that young, as the dark streaks normally seen in the first years after impact are gone.

Thus, this glacier suggests that not only can near surface Martian ice exist closer than 30 degrees latitude from the equator, it can survive there for a considerable amount of time.

Nor is this glacial flow, so close to the equator, unusual for this region of Mars.
» Read more

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Sunspot update: The Sun’s unprecedented pause to maximum continues

9:44 am

It is the beginning of the month, and NOAA has once again published its update of its monthly graph that tracks the number of sunspots on the Sun’s Earth-facing hemisphere. Below is the newest graph, adding November’s numbers to the timeline and annotated by me with some additional details added to provide context.

Sunspot activity dropped in November, though still remained significantly higher than the prediction, a sunspot number of 77.6 compared to the predicted number of 57.4. At 77.6, the Sun continues the pause that began in June in the ramp up to solar maximum. For the past half year the Sun’s sunspot output has essentially stalled at approximately the same level.

» Read more

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FCC puts the squeeze on SpaceX’s Starlink

9:07 am

More than two years after SpaceX had first requested regulatory permission to launch its full 30,000 Starlink satellite constellation, FCC (under the Biden administration) has finally made a decision, and in doing so it has arbitrarily reduced the number of satellites SpaceX can launch to 7,500.

On November 29th, 2022, the FCC completed that review and granted SpaceX permission to launch just 7,500 of the ~30,000 Starlink Gen2 satellites it had requested permission for more than 30 months prior. The FCC offered no explanation of how it arrived at its arbitrary 75% reduction, nor why the resulting number is slightly lower than a different 7,518-satellite Starlink Gen1 constellation SpaceX had already received a license to deploy in late 2018. Adding insult to injury, the FCC repeatedly acknowledges that “the total number of satellites SpaceX is authorized to deploy is not increased by our action today, and in fact is slightly reduced.”

That claimed reduction is thanks to the fact that shortly before this decision, SpaceX told the FCC in good faith that it would voluntarily avoid launching the dedicated V-band Starlink constellation it already received a license for in order “to significantly reduce the total number of satellites ultimately on orbit.” Instead, once Starlink Gen2 was approved, it would request permission to add V-band payloads to a subset of the 29,988 planned Gen2 satellites, achieving a similar result without the need for another 7,518 satellites.

In response, the FCC slashed the total number of Starlink Gen2 satellites permitted to less than the number of satellites approved by the FCC’s November 2018 Starlink V-band authorization; limited those satellites to middle-ground orbits, entirely precluding Gen2 launches to higher or lower orbits; and didn’t even structure its compromise in a way that would at least allow SpaceX to fully complete three Starlink Gen2 ‘shells.’ Worse, the FCC’s partial grant barely mentioned SpaceX’s detailed plans to use new E-band antennas on Starlink Gen2 satellites and next-generation ground stations, simply stating that it will “defer acting on” the request until “further review and coordination with Federal users.”

Apparently, the FCC’s decision here was essentially a rubber-stamp of recommendations by Amazon, whose Kuiper constellation (so far entirely unlaunched) would be SpaceX’s direct competitor. In other words, the FCC is now taking sides against Starlink to favor its competitors.

Read the entire article. In every way this FCC decision smacks of politics, partly to help a Democratic ally (Jeff Bezos) and partly to hurt someone the Democrats now see as an enemy (Elon Musk).

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Orion fires engine, leaves lunar orbit

8:47 am

After firing its engines yesterday, NASA’s Orion spacecraft has left lunar orbit and begun a long looping route that will zip past the Moon and then head back to Earth.

The burn changed Orion’s velocity by about 454 feet per second and was performed using the Orion main engine on the European Service Module. The engine is an orbital maneuvering system engine modified for use on Orion and built by Aerojet Rocketdyne. The engine has the ability to provide 6,000 pounds of thrust. The proven engine flying on Artemis I flew on 19 space shuttle flights, beginning with STS-41G in October 1984 and ending with STS-112 in October 2002.

The burn is one of two maneuvers required ahead of Orion’s splashdown in the Pacific Ocean on Dec. 11. The second will occur on Monday, Dec. 5, when the spacecraft will fly 79.2 miles above the lunar surface and perform the return powered flyby burn, which will commit Orion on its course toward Earth.

The spacecraft will splashdown on December 11, 2022, if all goes right.

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Webb and Keck telescopes track clouds on Titan

11:08 am

Clouds on Titan
Click for original image.

Astronomers have used the Webb Space Telescope and the Keck Observatory in Hawaii to take infrared images days apart of the evolving clouds on the Saturn moon Titan.

The false-color infrared images to the right are those observations. From the press release:

As part of their investigation of Titan’s atmosphere and climate, Nixon’s team used JWST’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) to observe the moon during the first week of November. After seeing the clouds near Kraken Mare, the largest known liquid sea of methane on the surface of Titan, they immediately contacted the Keck Titan Observing Team to request follow-up observations.

“We were concerned that the clouds would be gone when we looked at Titan a day later with Keck, but to our delight there were clouds at the same positions on subsequent observing nights, looking like they had changed in shape,” said Imke de Pater, emeritus professor of astronomy at the University of California, Berkeley, who leads the Keck Titan Observing Team.

Using Keck Observatory’s second generation Near-Infrared Camera (NIRC2) in combination with the Keck II Telescope’s adaptive optics system, de Pater and her team observed one of Titan’s clouds rotating into and another cloud either dissipating or moving out of Earth’s field of view due to Titan’s rotation.

These images only increase my mourning for a Saturn orbiter. Since the end of Cassini’s mission in 2017, we have essentially been blind to the ringed planet and its many moons. These images, while producing excellent data, also illustrate well what we have lost.

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Scientists: Viking-1 might have landed on a field of Martian tsunami debris

10:26 am

The geological history of the Viking-1 Mars landing site

As outlined in their new paper [pdf], a team of scientists now hypothesize that the features that surrounded Viking-1 when it landed on Mars in 1976 were caused by two past Martian tsunamis. Each tsunamis occurred due to an impact in the theorized ocean that is believed to have existed in this part of Mars’ northern lowland plains several billion years ago.

The graphic to the right, figure 8 from the paper, shows the hypothesized sequence of events. From the caption:

(a) Pohl crater forms within a shallow marine environment, (b) triggering tsunami water and debris flow fronts. (c) The wave fronts extensively inundate the highland lowland boundary plains, including a section ~ 900 km southwest of the impact site. (d) The ocean regresses to ~ − 4100 m, accompanied by regional glacier dissection, which erode the rims of Pohl and other craters. (e) The younger tsunami overflows Pohl and parts of the older tsunami. Glaciation continues, and mud volcanoes later source and emerge from the younger tsunami deposit. (f) ~ 3.4 billion years later, the Viking 1 Lander touches down on the edge of the older tsunami deposit.

The overview map below provides the larger context.
» Read more

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SpaceX postpones launch of Ispace’s Hakuto-R lunar lander

8:40 pm

SpaceX tonight canceled the Falcon 9 launch of the private Hakuto-R lunar lander, built by the Japanese company Ispace and carrying the UAE’s Rashid rover.

After further inspections of the launch vehicle and data review, SpaceX is standing down from Falcon 9’s launch of ispace’s HAKUTO-R Mission 1 from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. A new target launch date will be shared once confirmed.

The first stage had flown four times previously. Apparently during their standard dress rehearsal countdown and fueling before launch they detected something that cannot be immediately resolved.

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